


Hold Person

by leomundstinyhut



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Because What is a Widofjord Fic Without Hand Kink, Cuddle for Warmth, Hand Kink, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Romantic Tension Still Up in the Air, Sharing a Bed, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Sexual Tension, separated from the group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 03:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leomundstinyhut/pseuds/leomundstinyhut
Summary: In Caleb’s eyes, it is picturesque. Dark, small, and a staircase leading up the porch that looks insurmountable, it’s still maybe the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.He makes way for it immediately, and he hears the crunch of Fjord following after him, panting heavily and following along in the treads Caleb leaves. The snow buffets Caleb’s face, whipping his hair into his eyes and neck like little knives, and he presses harder for the unassuming little building, gritting his teeth against the cold.When he reaches the staircase, he turns to look back. He squints through the wind and out behind them through the steady roar of snow. He can no longer hear the shrieks of the hags and sees no sign of them over Fjord’s shoulder, but that does not mean they are not still coming.Something is always coming.----Treating injuries is a lot more time-consuming when you're out two clerics.





	Hold Person

**Author's Note:**

> Hemmed and hawed at this for like a week and finally I'm just gonna... put it out there.
> 
> I started this fic on the episode before they reached Xhorhaus, and I imagined Xhorhaus being a very icy wasteland kind of place. Luckily by the time I finished it, they're heading to the mountains, so it all kind of fixed itself in the end! Hooray!
> 
> Thank you so much to [Danny](https://twitter.com/jlawleypop) for beta-ing for me i love u... u made this read so much better.
> 
> Anyway here's entirely too many words about two guys who still don't talk about the things that matter and use their hands to communicate. I... HOPE YOU LIKE IT I spent too long on it. <3

They’ve been running for what must be almost an hour when the cabin appears in Caleb’s vision.

In Caleb’s eyes, it is picturesque. Dark, small, and a staircase leading up the porch that looks insurmountable, it’s still maybe the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He makes way for it immediately, and he hears the crunch of Fjord following after him, panting heavily and following along in the treads Caleb leaves. The snow buffets Caleb’s face, whipping his hair into his eyes and neck like little knives, and he presses harder for the unassuming little building, gritting his teeth against the cold.

When he reaches the staircase, he turns to look back. He squints through the wind and out behind them through the steady roar of snow. He can no longer hear the shrieks of the hags and sees no sign of them over Fjord’s shoulder, but that does not mean they are not still coming.

Something is always coming.

Fjord clambers onto the porch, breathing heavily. When he reaches the rickety door, ridiculously, he holds it open and stares back at Caleb with his jaw locked so hard his new tusks are showing. “Come on! Get inside!”

Snapped from his inspection, Caleb can’t find it in him to explain himself, and he simply uses the last of his strength to climb the steps and stumble into the cabin. Fjord moves inside after him and slams the door closed. Caleb hears him twist the simple lock and, despite himself, bites back a smirk.

The interior is very dark, ill-lit except for the windows. In that Caleb takes gratitude; no light coming in means no holes in the structure. He props himself up against the wall and drops his head against it, quickly flicking out two globules of soft white-yellow light to give them both a better view of what appears to be their current accommodations.

Small, just as it had appeared outside. Simple wooden floors and walls and sparse decoration. There is a raggedy rug, a sturdy table, and pans and pots strewn across a dilapidated countertop. It looks like someone once lived here for some time, but they had perhaps moved on to an area less infested with murderous, child-eating monsters. Caleb hopes that is the case, as he finds himself rather tired of the area already. _You know what they say about ‘location’._

Beside him, Fjord lets out a huff. “Well.”

“Well,” Caleb agrees, rolling his head on the wall to look at his shivering friend. “It’s dry. And there’s not a frightening old woman in sight.”

Fjord’s weary face twists into a facsimile of a smile. “We’ll make it work, I guess.” The pair of them are twins in their exhaustion. Fjord huffs. Relief blooms in his features, and Caleb cannot help but echo the sentiment.

“Don’t we always.”

With what appears to be a gargantuan effort, Fjord pushes off the wall and moves further into the cabin. He heads for an actual _fireplace_ over on the far wall. “At least we can get warm.” His tone is steady, even as his shoulders slump with exertion. Caleb feels a pang of empathy for the man.

 _“Ja,”_ he murmurs. He closes the mercifully indoor shutters as he passes by the window, settling beside Fjord with a sigh.

The fight had been… unpleasant.

Traveling to Xhorhas had eventually led them out of the caves and into the snowy bases of mountains. They could not simply go from point A to point Z, that would be too easy.

Intercepted by an old woman along the road, it had been Fjord that had stepped forward to ask if she was alright. Caleb remembers watching from the cart and noticing Caduceus tense up beside him. The way the old woman had turned her face up from under the hood, peered at Fjord with white eyes, like fogged up glass. Fjord’s visible alarm as she’d snatched his wrist with a long-fingered, ice-blue hand. Her horrible teeth, her horrible smile. Her horrible laugh, before she’d begun to burn Fjord’s skin with the ice.

Caleb had leapt down from the cart with Nott in tow. So much had happened so quickly. Before he’d known it, there were four of them, appearing like ghosts from the shrieking wind.

Caleb stares at the broad line of Fjord’s back, now, and thinks of the way Fjord had been thrown onto the snow like a limp ragdoll. The way the hags had deliberately split them up, herding them like cattle. He’d lost his hold on Nott, but he took a brief reassurance in the way Beau had immediately put herself in front of the little goblin. Caduceus and Yasha held out twin pale hands, and Jester lashed her tail with a hiss as she backed away toward them. A split-second thought, _the clerics together is not good,_ deemed more appropriate for a later time.

The woman had seemed so small and frail before. But then she rose like a great ice-sheened tower, casting a shadow over himself and Fjord, and she grinned wildly, her cracked lips splitting into a cackle. She’d focused on Fjord when he’d materialized his falchion, seeming to regard him as the larger threat. Swatted him, like a bug. Sent him scattering across the snow with a sharp shout.

Caleb thinks now of the hag’s stretched, leering face, fangs like crossed blades as she’d leaned over Fjord, one enormous hand pinning him to the ground.

In the moment, though, Caleb _hadn’t_ thought. He’d just reacted, quickdraw, the way Fjord always seemed to make him do. A burning had overtaken his hands, and he had reached out and grabbed the hag’s face until she’d screamed bloody murder; a dark satisfaction and innate terror in hearing the way her voice changed from malice into pain.

It had been enough, to make her let Fjord go. Enough for Fjord to scrabble to his feet, dragging through the snow in little troughs, and to reach and grab Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb had caught a glimpse of the hag’s scalded face, the burns he’d left, before Fjord had thunderstepped him away, 90 feet up the mountain and not nearly far enough away. The snap of lighting struck the hag and carried her scream up behind them, and Caleb had looked, seen his friends being turned away from, seen all three of the uninjured hags whip around to see what had hurt their sister, and had given a whoop.

Thoroughly distracted, the hags had given chase.

And here they were.

He isn’t sure how they really outran them, but Fjord had used Thunderstep once more before they had arrived here; he was tapped of magic. Caleb himself had used more spells than he’d like, not including the burning hands. Expeditious Retreat was not meant to carry two people; it had taken more out of him than he’d realized.

Neither of them are in good shape.

So Caleb sits his tired arse down on the wooden floor beside where Fjord is crouching. The other man looks at him from the corner of his yellow eyes, and he straightens a little, removing his hands from the little pyramid of wood he’d made of the remaining scraps in the fireplace.

Caleb rubs his own palms together, trying not to feel icy skin underneath his nails. He peers back at Fjord, and when they meet eyes, they both give each other genuine, if small, smiles.

After a moment, Fjord clears his throat. “You okay to light this up, or should I?”

Ah, right. The fire. Caleb’s smile falters faintly as he stares back at the woodpile, and he releases his hands, flexing his fingers. “Uh, _ja,_ I can do it.” _It’s just wood, at least. Not a face._

The inspection of his companion is heavy and obvious, but when he speaks, Fjord’s voice is strangely laced with cajoling. “Because I can, you know. Do it.”

Something about the way he says it catches Caleb’s attention. He turns back to Fjord and lifts an eyebrow. “… Alright.”

Brightening slightly, Fjord lifts his hands to his mouth to huff into them twice, shaking the cold from his digits. Caleb briefly entertains the thought of offering to warm them himself, but before he can, Fjord is moving to pull something out of the simple brown pack on his hip. He reaches forward for the wood, a dagger appearing from his bag, as well. Caleb huffs, abruptly realizing what is happening an instant before the fire does indeed catch and begin spreading through the wood.

Fjord tends to it for a moment, leaning close to blow gently and make sure it spreads evenly. Then he leans back with a satisfied sigh, and he turns back to Caleb with a hint of teasing pressed into the divot in his cheek. He holds up a large chunk of flint in his wide palm, wiggling it. “Some of us had to do without magic for most of our lives, you know. You could really benefit from learnin’ how to use this.”

“Pfft.” Caleb reaches forward and manages to snag the flint out of Fjord’s hand, just fast enough before Fjord tries to clamp his fingers down on it. “I didn’t always know magic. I know very well how to use it.” He inspects the fat shard of stone; it appears fairly well-used, old. He supposes there’s some truth in that Fjord had once had to use it often. It is a wonder he has held onto it for so long.

Fjord hums, reaching forward in a low-rolling, tired kind of way to try and paw the flint back. Caleb would be more inclined to play cat and mouse with him if he was less exhausted; as it is, he gives it up without a fight, feeling the pads of Fjord’s fingers slide against the scar on his palm. Caleb is too exhausted to think about that, either.

“Kinda hard to imagine little Caleb Widogast roughin’ it in nature,” Fjord says, flashing him a look that reads as both cautious and friendly. Curious, but not pressing. Caleb looks back at him neutrally, considering what speaking could entail.

They are alone, and Fjord does not know the exact circumstances of… anything. Deliberately so. Caleb isn’t sure that’s going to ever be a conversation he’s ready for, even if he’s now offered to tell Fjord several times. Fjord never presses, never pushes, never takes him up on it. He had not even said _Bren,_ when Caleb knows Fjord knows he was not always who he is now.

Maybe that’s why it feels safe to mentally turn back to this page in his book of memories, paltry as they are, hurtful as they could be. Caleb thinks of _before,_ of how he’d been as a child. Truly a child: a young boy, living on a little farm, with two parents that loved him. Before he’d even known the name ‘Ikithon’.

The fire growing in front of them threatens to completely singe the thoughts away, but Caleb ignores it. Forces a noise like a hum up and out of him, and he instead focuses on the warmth slowly seeping into his skin.

“Believe it or not, I was, ah… a farm boy.” Memories of hay and dirt on his hands, on hands completely free of scars, or burns, or little crystal implements shoved in like shards of glass. Memories of a stable, with one horse and a barn cat that had been his best friend. “I had to learn to build a fire the old-fashioned way… when you are sitting out in the dark waiting for a goat to give a healthy birth, it helps to see what you are doing, _ja?”_

Fjord’s curious expression is still present, though there’s a touch of amusement glowing around the corners now. _“You_ helped birth a goat?” He gives Caleb a once-over that is simultaneously mildly insulting and mildly funny.

Caleb smirks. “Is that so hard to believe?” At Fjord’s cocked eyebrow, Caleb leans closer, spreading his hands a little and making a demonstrative pulling motion. “It is all about technique, not strength. And not being afraid to get your hands messy.”

Now Fjord is making a face. “Ew.”

 _“Ja,_ it was never exactly a pleasant experience, but when I was a child I did not mind getting dirty. I suppose I haven’t changed in that aspect.” Caleb blinks down at the floor between them, going half-lidded as he thinks quietly of the little goat’s first bleats, how his young hands had helped it stand and move toward its mother. “It is funny to think that a goat surviving the night was once one of the biggest things I had to worry about. In all this.”

Fjord is quiet. When Caleb looks up at him, he is looking back, the golden gleam of fire bright against the set of his black sclera. He would seem almost sinister in this light, were it not for the gentled set of his mouth, the dark lashes smudged like kohl, making him appear more like an lovingly-crafted painting. The slant of his brows, twisted down, pained, are nearly artistic in their expression. Caleb swallows silently.

“That sounds like a simple, easy life,” he says after a moment.

It would be easy to interpret as an insult, but there is something in the careful way he says it that sounds… almost wistful.

Of course; Fjord would not insult the life of a simple farm boy who lived with his parents, no matter how poor they were.

Caleb blinks, his voice coming out softer than he means for it to. “It was.”

He holds the eye contact, swallowing and watching the firelight glow across his friend’s tired face, suddenly determined not to be the one to break this connection. This is too important a moment to fold on, he thinks, even if he does not know why. Fjord stares at him several seconds, searching his gaze for something that Caleb abruptly hopes he is expressing without words. It feels hot and almost uncomfortable, the tension laced in the air nearly taking his breath away.

And then Fjord does look away; down, eyes flicking to Caleb’s throat and then down to his chest, though his expression is too lost in thought to actually be seeing anything.

“Vandran taught me how to use the flint. Just, you know, for helping to cook shit in the kitchen.” He gestures vaguely, and Caleb briefly imagines a much younger, more uncertain Fjord, bent over a fire as he had been just moments ago, blowing gently to catch the flame. “There’s some easy magic I know that people can just light up something in seconds, but… I guess he thought it was important to teach me how to do it manually. Always good to know how to do _something_ if… if one day you wake up and…” A shadow passes over Fjord’s face, one he seems to banish only with effort. Caleb again wishes he could peel back this mask, see whatever it was that was hurting Fjord just under the surface, but he keeps his mouth shut as his friend continues.

“Vandran always told me magic was unpredictable. Better to avoid it if you could do the same thing with just your wits.” Fjord tips one shoulder up in a shrug, seeming to come back to himself as he huffs and looks up at Caleb again. “Didn’t take much, I guess. Never stopped thinking magic was the coolest shit a person could do. Not even now.”

Caleb blinks back at him, before a small smile curls onto his face. His mind buzzes with the new information, but his voice is playful when he speaks. “Hmm. Maybe. It _is_ pretty cool.”

Fjord’s serious expression lightens just a touch. “Mhm.”

“And now you can do some of it,” Caleb continues, as he lifts his palms to face the fire and peers over at the other man.

Fjord smirks, though there’s something like the edge of a blade under his fine features. Caleb wishes he knew why. A memory of Fjord running out into the rain comes unbidden, whispering potentiality. He presses it away. _Not now._ “Aw, you think I’m cool, Widogast?”

Caleb flexes his fingers closer to the flame, letting out a soft noise as warmth seeps into them. He should really invest in thicker gloves. “Nonsense. Your _magic_ is cool. _You_ are a hot mess, big guy.”

A snort from his friend. “Takes one to know one— _ah.”_ Caleb hears him take a sharp inhale and when he looks, Fjord is snapping a hand to his side. A grimace of pain flashes on Fjord’s face. He could slap himself.

“You’re hurt.” He scoots closer, wincing himself as he feels something on his back open and begin flowing. _“Ah— schieße.”_

“We’re both hurt,” Fjord grits, pulling his hand back and inspecting the palm as if checking for blood. There’s none there, none that Caleb can see. Fjord clenches his hand tight before looking up at Caleb again, quirking a smile. “You see where Jester and Deuces got off to?”

Caleb hums, nodding. “They split off together with Yasha, last I saw.” He frowns, letting his eyes fall to the floor between them. “I hope they all got out alright. I hope Beauregard and Nott are uninjured.”

“I think we distracted the hags pretty well. Just… keep an ear out for messages, I guess,” Fjord mumbles back. Now that he has acknowledged his injuries it seems to be hanging around him like a gloom. His face contorts as he begins undoing his armor, twisting and plucking at the pieces until they begin to shed from him like a crab removing its shell. Caleb watches, too tired to think straight, mindlessly noting where Fjord’s clawed fingers find the little ties and undo them, where he plucks at them neatly and with practiced ease.

It’s only when Fjord sheds the chest piece and drops it behind him that Caleb snaps from his daze, zeroing in on a large red splotch that rides all the way up Fjord’s side, smeared sporadically like one of Jester’s paints had gone haywire. Fjord hisses through his teeth as he slowly peels his pale cream shirt away from his body, holding it out for a moment to inspect the blood. “Yikes,” he says, ridiculously.

Caleb is moving before he realizes it.

He shifts to his knees, hands reaching to hover over Fjord’s side. Fjord looks up at him in surprise.

“Let me see,” Caleb says.

Fjord snorts, still holding his own shirt.

“What, you learn how to stitch wounds while birthing goats?” he asks. Caleb gives him the most unimpressed look he can muster while he’s feeling this amount of worry.

“Yes, actually. I’m no cleric but I can patch this up on you easier than you can on yourself. Let me see.” When Fjord still hesitates, Caleb makes an impatient motion with his hand. “I’m not going to hurt it any more than it is already hurt, I promise.”

Fjord’s eyes on him are nearly leaden with their weight. They are laced with something far heavier than Caleb had been expecting when he meets them. It zings through his body as if he’s just been electrocuted.

A blink, and it’s gone, sinking beneath the golden waves of Fjord’s irises like some unlucky sailor; present, but beneath the surface. A shipwreck of a feeling.

He pulls his shirt up before Caleb can examine that.

Thoroughly re-occupied, for now, Caleb absentmindedly pulls one of the little globules of light still floating around the room closer, curling his fingers in a beckon to summon it into his palm. The blue-white glow plays hard against the orange of the firelight across Fjord’s abdominals, ice and flame meeting on green skin. Fjord is almost like a rainbow right now, with the smattering of colors across him, but Caleb is honed in on the red that has managed to curl its way up towards Fjord’s chest.

The wound itself looks shallow. Caleb reaches out a hand; when Fjord doesn’t move away, he carefully lays it flat on his ribs, pushing just a little to see where the flesh is actually ruptured. It’s a long cut, but Caleb cannot see any bone underneath. Lucky. He frowns, eyes following the opening up almost to Fjord’s pectoral, where it skitters off to the side and has left several smaller, less dangerous-looking scrapes until eventually petering off.

“Messy,” he says quietly. Fjord snorts, some of the tension sloughing off his shoulders. Caleb feels a small gleam of pride that he managed to say something to cause that.

“Thought you didn’t mind messy,” he mutters. Caleb cocks an eyebrow at him, not disagreeing. “How’s it look?”

“Painful, but as long as we clean it well and wrap it up you should be fine. No stitching required.” Caleb pulls back. As he does, the wetness on his palm draws his attention for just a moment; he looks down at the blood smeared across his hand, already coagulating and sticking in between his fingers and in the nook of his wrist.

_We understand each other._

The memories of that day are always on the back of his mind, always percolating, reminding him of the manipulator he had allowed himself to be. He can see the scar like an accusation, broken skin now healed but never actually the same. He knows if he took Fjord’s hand and lined them up, the scars would align perfectly. A test, a challenge, met and exceeded. Caleb had learned much about Fjord beneath the ocean, and some of the things he still thought about. Images of Fjord’s eyes, recklessly passionate, had sent the predator in Caleb baying after the blood in the water.

But the blood then is different from the blood now.

Now he can be the solution to the wound, and not the causation. And Fjord is letting him.

So much had changed in so little time. It is almost dizzying.

He can feel Fjord staring, and so simply reaches into his bag as if he had not paused — and perhaps Fjord didn’t notice, it had been but a split-second — and pulls out the bandages he always had kept on him for so many years now he could not be bothered to count them. He didn’t wear them, anymore, not for a few weeks now, but he had yet to completely get rid of his stash. He supposes it’s a good thing.

“Wait,” Fjord says. Caleb pauses with the bandages in his clean hand. “You’re hurt too. Lemme see.”

 _Ah. Right._ He had almost forgotten, delving into his task eagerly, but the pulse of pain at the reminder has him nodding. He shrugs his jacket off with a pained hiss, feeling it stick to him a little, knowing that meant he had bled through his shirt. _“Verdammt,_ this was _new…”_ Muttering to himself, he shimmies it off his shoulders, tossing it to the side and unwinding his scarf with some difficulty.

Much less concerned with his modesty, Caleb shucks his shirt without being prompted. He doesn’t check to see if Fjord has any reaction to this — he doubts it, Fjord has probably seen him entirely nude at this point — and turns just enough for Fjord to get a view of his back. “I think one of the hags got a swipe at me as I was running,” he manages, the pain suddenly much worse when exposed to air. “Ah… that or it was the blast of ice that hit me. Both hurt.”

Fjord makes a low noise behind him, and Caleb flinches a little as cold fingers unexpectedly lay on his spine. He can feel the drag of his skin against the gentle prick of Fjord’s claws, can feel whatever is on his back creak just a little. Fjord makes another noise. “Sorry, still freezing— but shit, Caleb, this looks way worse than mine.”

Caleb huffs as his head hangs between his shoulders. “You need to work on your bedside manner, my friend.”

There’s no response besides Fjord making a small noise and rubbing his thumb against one of the knobs of Caleb’s spine. Caleb closes his eyes with a swallow, letting his head hang further and sloping his shoulders so he can feel the skin go taut. Despite the chill of Fjord’s fingers, it is still a warm press against the cooling plane of his back. “What does it look like?”

“Magical,” Fjord confirms, smoothing his thumb again. “There’s some scratches here and there, too, lower down, but the brunt of it is this… ice. Like the center of a blast kind of pushed out. It starts in the center… ends here.” Fjord taps a claw about halfway down Caleb’s back. “Like… it _looks_ like ice, but when I push—” and he does, enough that Caleb slumps forward a little with a wince — “It’s like… changing colors when I press on it. Blue to white.”

“Hmm.” Caleb looks down at his hands folded in his lap, letting his eyes trace over the jagged scars lacing his forearms thoughtfully. He tries putting himself back into old lessons, though he knows all that knowledge has been gone from him for some time.

Ice magic could be very dangerous, if it was not treated properly and if it was potent enough. “It feels… very cold. Predictably. Your touch is… warm even though it should not be, since you’re freezing, too.”

A pause. Then Fjord lays his whole hand flat on the breadth between his shoulder blades. Caleb shivers at the change in temperature; heat seeps through Fjord’s palm, soaking into the cold ice on his back just as the fire in front of them soaks into his chest. It is tempting to lean back into that comfort, encourage Fjord to keep his touch there, but he keeps his head low. “Does it hurt?” Fjord’s voice is soft.

He attempts clinical honesty, does not allow anything else to color his answer. “Less, now that you’re covering it. The air makes it sting.” He tips his head, peering at Fjord over his shoulder. He peers back; his hair is in loose dark locks around his temples, blown out of his topknot by the wind outside. Caleb wets his lips. “Does it look like it’s spreading?”

Fjord is quiet for a few moments, presumably watching the ice’s edges to note any changes. His hand remains where it is, seeping body heat into Caleb and dulling the sharp prickles that race up and down his spine. After a second, Caleb feels him lean closer; the soft ploom of his breath curls over Caleb’s shoulders. It makes him close his eyes again and face forward as Fjord makes a considering sound.

Injury treating is not usually so intimate. Usually Jester or Caduceus simply need to put a hand on him and the wound restitched itself, no matter where it was, no matter its effects. He wishes one of them were here now, as heat rises into his face, uncurling smoke from the flame in his belly.

At least he is not cold anymore. A breath touches his ear, wisps around some of his hair, and he bites his nails into his palms. _Focus._

“Nah. It looks stable,” Fjord murmurs, his other hand coming around to trace along the outside edge of the blast. Caleb barely manages to hold off another shiver. “Your skin is turnin’ blue here, but… not like how it is under the ice.”

 _“Ja,_ pale humans sometimes change colors based on temperature,” Caleb rattles off absently. “Blue is not great.”

Fjord snorts. “Yeah, I didn’t figure.” His voice is languid with something inquisitive, but he doesn’t say anything else.

Caleb sighs, then rolls his shoulders, weariness setting in once more now that he is becoming warm and his bones are beginning to settle. “Mmh. Let us deal with yours first. It’s the easier of the two.”

Fjord carefully pulls his hands back, and Caleb can feel the one in the center of the blast get stuck in the way hot things stick to ice. He grimaces at the tugging feeling, and at the immediate cold burn that comes when Fjord takes his warmth away, but he doesn’t voice it. He turns to face him again.

The other man is clearly as tired as Caleb is. When Caleb reaches for him, he lifts his shirt without complaint, tucking the hem under his chin and peering down at his wound.

Caleb turns and grabs his bag. He removes a strip of the bandages and digs a little more to retrieve the bottle of alcohol he’d bought to potentially give to Nott. _This is probably a better use of it,_ he allows himself, and smiles just a touch thinking about what his little goblin friend would have to say about that if she heard it. He douses the bandage, then sets the alcohol aside. The smell is strong enough to be almost a physical blow; both he and Fjord make a face.

There was nothing for it. The wound couldn’t be allowed to become infected.

“This is going to hurt,” he warns Fjord, looking up at him through his lashes. Fjord stares back at him, then sets his jaw with a nod.

“I can take it.”

“I know you can.” Fjord blinks, something in his face getting less defensive, but Caleb continues on. “But this is strong booze. Here.” He takes Fjord’s hand with his free one, giving it a squeeze. “Take your mind off it.”

Now the look Fjord gives him is strange. The emotion that had been pushed below before resurfaces, but Caleb still cannot parse it. “... Thanks.”

 _“Ja.”_ Caleb sets his own jaw, refocusing on his task even as he feels Fjord continuing to stare at him in that odd, warm way that sets his stomach churning.

It doesn’t last long; as soon as Caleb puts the rag onto the wound, Fjord hisses like he’s just been stabbed, and immediately clenches his fingers around Caleb’s in a deathgrip. Caleb forces his face to fall into a neutral mask, any pain slipping away between his features, even as Fjord makes the bones in his hand scream. He holds his hand in return, as best he can with his fingers being crushed, and he uses his free one to lean forward and wipe the blood away. The wound pours red in response to his ministrations as he dabs as gently as possible, trying to ignore the gritted, pained noises Fjord is making near his ear.

 _“Fuck,”_ Fjord gasps. His claws dig into the back of Caleb’s hand; the foreclaw even breaks skin. Fjord doesn’t seem to notice.

Caleb’s mouth is opening before he knows what he’s going to say. “The goat’s name was Matilda. The mother, anyway. My father told me I could name the kid.” His voice comes out sounding like he’s chatting amiably about his day. It is something he has very little experience in — this, the comforting thing — at least, a muscle he has not flexed in quite some time. Maybe he will be terrible at it.

But. In his periphery, Fjord’s teeth are still grit, but his eyes are no longer clenched shut from pain, instead boring holes into the side of Caleb’s head. Caleb hears him let out a shaky exhale, drag another breath in. He doesn’t think Fjord is actually seeing him, but the movement is encouraging.

“I named him Surly. Or, well, I named him Mürrisch, but it means _surly._ He had the most annoyed expression on his face from the moment he came out, so. It suited him. It was hopelessly funny at the time. Father laughed.”

Blood slicks his fingers, blood soaks through the bandage. Caleb carefully traces the wound from one end to the other, up along Fjord’s rabbiting ribcage to the crease beneath his pectoral. He dabs at the other scratches the hag had left, hearing Fjord’s labored breathing close to his ear. Fjord’s chest is broad and strong, free of body hair. It… it simply makes working easy, with the skin taut over his musculature, nothing to impede Caleb’s work. Caleb swallows around anything his brain might say, tracing a cut that goes up a little further than the others. Fjord’s panting has softened, though it is still loud in the enclosed space; this hurts less than the big wound.

“... Mürrisch was the sweetest goat I believe I have ever met. He looked so angry all the time, but inside he was quite the softie.” Caleb smiles a little to himself, remembering the patchy gray beast butting over and over into his mother’s palm, demanding attention. When his eyes begin to sting, he ignores them. “That is typical of goats. People see their strange square pupils and horns and bite-y little teeth and think they are just ugly sheep. But goats are fine creatures. Mürrisch once bit Ikithon.”

Caleb wipes away some sweat, readjusts his grip on the bandage to find a clean spot, and dabs his way back down Fjord’s body, taut with discomfort but easily imagined as something else. His mind is blank with focus. His mind catalogues what he is seeing and puts it away. He, perhaps, hates his mind.

Fjord, for his part, rumbles something like amusement. Caleb can feel it under his fingers. “Your shitty teacher?” His voice is still strained, choked-off, but it’s evident the conversation is at least taking his mind off it.

Onward, then.

Caleb’s snort is a little thicker than he’d like, but neither of them comment on it. _“Ja,_ it was… the first time Ikithon came out to my home. To discuss… well. He found me out at the barn with the animals. And Mürrisch just… walked up and bit him. Right between the thumb and forefinger.” He smiles, and it’s mean. “I had never seen that goat bite _anyone,_ not in the 3 years he’d been alive. He tolerated children, other animals, my father when he needed to get re-shoed.” Caleb shakes his head, doing one more wipe on the large wound before setting the bandage aside. “I suppose that should’ve been a sign.”

Fjord’s hand in his is looser, now, but he hasn’t let go. “Sometimes animals got better instincts than people do,” he murmurs. “Sounds like a good goat.” There’s amusement there, maybe a touch of teasing, but it makes Caleb finally meet his eyes again.

He wants to smirk, but he cannot find it in him. “He was.”

Fjord continues looking at him for a moment, still lit on either side by orange and blue, his irises taking on a strange, fetching gold-metallic in the middle. “Still funny to think of you as a goat-herder,” Fjord says quietly, but the humor has faded from his voice. “... To think you coulda spent your life doing that when you’re… this, now.”

Caleb blinks, a little stung, and he breaks eye contact, taking his hand back to reach for the dry bandages since Fjord no longer seemed to need it. The unexpected stab hurts worse than any ice magic. He curses himself for letting the moment become too vulnerable. “Of course. I ruined any potential for a life like that.” _It is not something I could have, anymore. A goat herder._ Caleb bites around a bitter smile. _I will spend my life running until either I achieve my goals or until I am dead._ “I am… rather too messy for that, now. Of course.”

A large verdant hand closes around his forearm, stilling his movements. Caleb pauses, locked on his former wrappings.

“I don’t mind messy.” A breath, and then Fjord tumbles on, “That’s not what I— I meant. You’re…” Fjord’s claws nip at his skin as he seems to parse through his words. “I just meant that you’re so powerful and incredibly talented, now, is all I meant. You’re… being a goat-herder is only funny because I’ve seen how amazing you are, with— I mean with your magic, and your mind, and memory, and… I can’t imagine you without that. The things you can do… little Fjord only dreamed about maybe someday being able to do.” He clears his throat, and abruptly releases Caleb, turning away. “That’s all I meant. Sorry.”

Caleb unglues his eyes from their placement, turning to peer at Fjord in his periphery. He looks abashed, dark lashes low over his high cheekbones, the tips of nubby tusks poking from his mulish mouth. Fjord’s intentions were not malicious, simply a little thoughtless. Caleb is certain he has done much the same kind of tromping over Fjord’s feelings in the past, and mentally smooths the page down that had wrinkled so quickly.

Fjord struggled with his words when things were personal. Caleb understands that.

“... Did you want to be a wizard, when you were a child?” He plucks the bandages up again, and turns back to Fjord more fully, briefly meeting his eyes to indicate that there was no harm done before he leans forward. He taps the bottom of Fjord’s bicep, and the man obediently lifts it out of the way, face settling into uncertain thoughtfulness. Caleb watches the muscles in his torso twist as he does so, watches the hag’s claw mark shift along his skin. He places his bandage over both of these things to stop thinking about them.

“Maybe? I dunno.” Fjord moves with Caleb as he begins wrapping him up, and eventually both his arms are up, his crossed wrists resting on top of his head. Dark underarm hair makes itself known; Caleb doesn’t know if he’s ever seen it before. He averts his eyes, feeling a heated prickle prowl down his spine, little pawsteps kneading into the small of his back. The pose is charming, and Caleb firmly leaves it at that. “I didn’t really… when I was a kid, my mind wasn’t really on what I wanted to be when I grew up.” His jaw sets a little, pushes his tusks just that small bit more forward. “I just wanted to grow up. Period.”

Caleb nods, pulling the bandage around and across his chest to cover the small nicks. “Understandable.”

Fjord is quiet for a few moments, seeming lost in thought. Caleb almost thinks he’s finished speaking, which is alright. He circles Fjord’s body twice more before his voice carries again, quiet, only audible because he is so close.

“But yeah, I mean. In an abstract way, maybe. ‘Specially when I was a little older. Old enough to wonder what was gonna happen to me when I got outta the orphanage.” He snorts self-deprecatingly; Caleb feels an ache begin to thump along to the heartbeat in his chest that has nothing to do with the battle. “Would’ve helped if I knew how to read, but you can’t really be a wizard without that. By the time Vandran taught me how, I was too busy to be chasin’ fantasies.”

Caleb knows there are no words he can say that can soothe the lost hopes of a young boy that is already long gone. That young boy is not before him, not now. Fjord is not who he was before; Caleb is certain of that, even if he had not known Fjord before he gained his powers.

He keeps his eyes on his work, absentmindedly rubbing some of the blood on his fingers against the bandages so it smears off. “The only books my family had were about proper gardening techniques,” he says quietly. “I was in my teens before I began pursuing magic. And only then because I stole books, and then because I was… trained.”

Fjord is looking at him again, but Caleb doesn’t meet his eye.

“...Many times, people are wrong when they believe they’ve lost their chance to chase something. Nothing is ever completely out of reach. Especially not for you, Fjord.” He tucks the end of the bandage into itself, slipping the tips of his fingers delicately against thin green skin. “You are passionate, and determined. Once you set your mind to something, it is hard to persuade you otherwise.”

He smiles a little at Fjord’s wordless grumble, but simply smooths the bandage down where it is, making sure it is tight and won’t budge with light movement. The body under his hands is firm, unyielding, even though it is injured; a reflection of what is hidden beneath. Caleb quietly takes his fingers back, placing them into his own lap, knowing better than to let himself linger when he is beginning to mentally wax poetic. “And… you have friends, now. Who are willing to help you achieve your goals. You are not alone, anymore.” _We care about you,_ he doesn’t say, _even me,_ he swallows, but he does finally look up into Fjord’s face again.

Fjord’s expression is complicated, as it is quite often. He seems to think over his words for a moment, and then he dips his head to briefly hide the way his mouth twitches. “You know, I think you might’ve said somethin’ like that to me before, but. Maybe it’s starting to take a little.”

Caleb hums to himself in return as he lets his gaze drift off to the fire beside them. “It is hard to believe I’ve managed to befriend what is possibly the only being alive more stubborn than I am.”

Fjord snorts, and some of the easiness glides back into his posture. “Only if you mean Beau.”

A laugh comes out of him, short and raspy and unappealing. Fjord shifts a little beside him. “Point. Though I do think she has been more yielding to several things than either of us have been.”

“... Yeah, true enough. She’s way better at this shit than I am, that’s for sure.” Fjord looks down at his bandage and smooths a palm across it, seeming surprised. “... This is actually pretty well-done. Thanks.”

Caleb cocks a brow and spreads his blood-covered hands as if accepting a mighty award. “I am not incompetent after all. You should see me birth a goat.”

Fjord flashes a rueful smirk at him, reaching out a booted foot to kick him gently in the shin. “Take the compliment, Widogast. Turn around, lemme look at your freaky magic ice.”

Caleb’s grin turns more lecherous even as he obeys. It is an example of his weariness that he lets it show at all. “Hm. I have not heard _that_ one in a while.”

Fjord pauses, seeming to reparse through his words, before his face goes a ruddy brown color around the cheekbones. “If those are the kind of pick-up lines that get you goin’, that ain’t surprising. Takes a special kinda someone.”

Caleb wheezes again, slumping with tiredness and the sting of pain, and closes his eyes when he feels Fjord’s hand press against his back once more. It would be strange of him to relish it, so he decides that he does not. “You’d be surprised what gets me going, Fjord.”

Fjord clears his throat around a laugh. “Hmm. Maybe not.”

 _Oh, you would,_ Caleb thinks, but tactfully keeps his mouth closed.

The conversation drops off as Caleb instead turns his attention to guiding Fjord through checking his wound over. There is not much that can be done with the minimal supplies they have. Caleb flips through his spellbook, but there is not any magic here that is specifically guided to help heal.

Fjord’s frown is almost audible when Caleb says so. “You didn’t take the time to learn _any_ healing magic?”

 _“Nein_. It was… not something I concerned myself with, before.” Caleb rubs his thumb against the corner of a well-worn page, skimming over the runes and translations. “It’s not something I need, when we have Jester and Caduceus.”

“Yeah, but… not even just in case?” Fjord’s words are uncomfortably probing, like he knows what the answer is and he isn’t happy about it.

“... Perhaps better to know the things that prevent you from getting injured in the first place,” Caleb says carefully, feeling the low, sticky crawl of ugliness curling around his ribcage like an alley cat around a garbage bin. He has not looked at this part of himself in some time, and does not care to at the moment, either, especially when there is little else to stop Fjord from poking at it.

He can sense Fjord’s skepticism. “What if something like this happens again?” Then, sterner, “What if I’m not with you next time?”

He has no response for that, not one that isn’t digging out a little part of himself he’d rather keep buried, so he instead flips another page and locks his jaw. “Do we have any oil?”

Fjord sighs softly behind him. “Yeah, Caleb. I got oil.”

Warming the oil by the fire and smearing it near the edges of the ice should stop any spreading that Fjord had not been able to see. Hopefully, it will help recede it as well, though Caleb has to take the vial once it is hot and murmur a protection charm against it to try and ensure that.

“This should keep the oil warm,” he explains quietly, handing it back to Fjord, who eyeballs it curiously. Caleb can see the barely-restrained fatigue locked behind his face, but it is present in the lazy way Fjord oils his fingers up, the wide knuckles and long claws gleaming gold in the low firelight. The blue globules of light have faded, now unnecessary with the precision work out of the way, leaving them both awash in only the warm orange they sit beside.

Caleb is not blind to the flurry of different scenarios this exact buildup could lead to. The pair of them, dressed down, in front of a roaring fire, with a bottle of multi-purpose oil and an injury that meant a lot of touching. He’s certain he’s seen a book cover illustrated in some such way (though probably without the blood covering Caleb’s hands), but it doesn’t change the charge in the air that reminds him that this is _Fjord_. The tiredness in him does nothing to alleviate the tension he’s had percolating in his stomach for who even knew how long.

He has ignored this misguided hunger for this long. He can endure some touching.

Fjord is careful in his placement of the oil, tracing the injury’s circumference with a clawed forefinger. Caleb can feel the occasional prick where the black nail almost snags on the ice, but it’s too dull to actually pierce skin when he isn’t applying pressure, and Caleb finds himself lulling slightly into the touch as Fjord repeats the process a second time.

“Will it hurt if it touches the actual ice?” Fjord murmurs after a moment, and Caleb shakes his head.

“No. Do not worry yourself.”

“Should actually feel pretty nice, right?” Without waiting for a reply, Fjord takes the flat of his palm and drags it down the center of the floe, smoothing hot oil down Caleb’s spine in a slick motion that plooms such warmth through him his toes curl.

Caleb cannot completely bite back the relieved, pleased noise he makes, slumping forward and hanging his head. Tingles spark across the frozen skin under the effects of the magic, and he clenches his fingers around his knees, eyes fluttering shut without his permission. Hot comfort pulses into him, and he feels the beginnings of the chill in his blood begin to recede for the first time since they’ve entered the cabin. “Hhnn, Fjord, we should not waste it… application on the wound will not do anything but soothe—”

“That’s all it needs to do,” Fjord interrupts, and now he smears the rest of the oil coated on his palms across the rest of the injury. Rubs it in with his thumbs. Tightly. “You need to learn to take comfort where you can find it, Widogast.”

Caleb clenches his jaw closed to prevent anything but little grunts and pants from coming out, but it’s enough to send heat washing into his face. He cannot bear to turn and see the expression Fjord is making, if he is even emoting at all. Fjord digs his fingers into the knobs under Caleb’s nape and pulls a hiss out of him like he is unfurling a sail. He feels his shoulders lift with the pain/pleasure of warmth on muscle tension. Fjord doesn’t stop, presses with the meat of his hands all the way down, down, down, to where the ice breaks off and stops midway down his spine.

After a breath of hesitation, Fjord continues his ministrations past even the extent of the injury.

Caleb freezes, adrenaline shooting through his blood with all the scattering precision of a lightning bolt; Fjord either ignores this or doesn’t notice, and smooths the oil down the entirety of Caleb’s back. His fingers press firm, biting pressure into the sore muscles just above his hips.

Caleb swears he slots his thumbs into the dimples tucked on his sacrum, squeezing, before working his way back up.

 _But no._ He’s imagined it; Fjord would not. He was bold in many things, but not in this. He would not behave this way in _this._ Not with Caleb.

Caleb can feel his body reacting regardless, and a burn begins overtaking his face and chest as blood rushes to all the places he’d rather it not. He can feel the urge to press himself into Fjord like a cat begging for attention, and _schieße,_ he did not want to be dealing with this now, when they were alone, and cold, and half-naked.

He had been doing so well, ignoring this. Attraction was fine, he reasoned; it was hard not to be attracted to Fjord, try as he might. He was handsome, and charming, and protective, and a good man at his core, while also being a bit of an asshole to people he didn’t trust, which was unfortunately Caleb’s modus operandi _._ But as long as he didn’t act on it, it was fine.

What is not fine is Fjord unknowingly pressing all of Caleb’s buttons and Caleb having to resist the temptation to turn and press him into the floor, injuries be damned.

Aches from every fall he’s taken on this journey that he’s simply ignored are tempered as Fjord works. He is by no means actually giving a massage — it feels, to Caleb’s quickly working mind, that he’s simply trying to cover the expanse of the injury and make sure the oil is rubbed in — but it feels… too intimate. Too much.

“Fjord?” Caleb says, unbidden and almost hating himself for it; it feels good, and no one has touched him in this way for… well. Perhaps no one has ever really touched him this way. Not with this level of care, not with the warm hands and the ice fighting against it, leaving him trapped between wanting more heat and already feeling unbearably flushed. He can feel the hairs on his neck standing up, goosebumps skimming up the backs of his arms and across his shoulders.

“... I have a lot of oil,” Fjord explains at the question, his tone steady and unyielding in a way that Caleb can’t tell if it’s put-on or if he really is simply that unbothered. “It’s… uh, it’s kinda everywhere. Don’t wanna waste it.”

“... Ah.” Caleb can feel the blush crawling up his neck.

There’s a pause, and then Fjord’s slick fingers work their way into Caleb’s hair, pulling it up and out of the way. He smooths a thumb across his hairline, and _schieße,_ Caleb can feel Fjord’s breath there again, billowing across the skin like he’s leaning much closer than he needs to. Caleb grinds his teeth together so hard they creak.

Fjord hums, low and slow and throaty. “Ice up here, too. Must’ve been a harder blast than you said.” He touches a slick claw-tip to the back of Caleb’s ear, just for half a second, and then pulls away again. Caleb feels like his heart might ricochet out of his chest. It would at least put him out of his misery. “You’re turning pink,” gods _dammit,_ Fjord, “I guess that means you’re warm now, hm?”

Caleb smothers the hysterical laugh working in his chest. It sounds like a pickup line, but Fjord would never. Not in this.

“Yes I feel much better Fjord,” Caleb manages, and with the distraction of words he can finally pull himself away from the touch, and turn, hoping against hope nothing gives him away. He can feel the slide of his hair escaping through Fjord’s fingers. He has to bite his tongue nearly in half before he speaks again. _“Danke,_ truly. You can use the rest of the oil on yourself. Rub it on your hands, or… or wherever else you are cold.”

He chances a look at Fjord’s face, and pauses.

Fjord’s expression is unreadable, but the slitted pupils of his eyes are blown wide, warm black, like the depths of a cave. He’s looking up at Caleb, palms gleaming with oil, his visage cast in sharp contrast thanks to the fire. Caleb can see the glint of small tusks from his just-parted lips, the way his shoulders shift on an exhale, rolling, the movement of some large predator. The firelight plays across his unarmored body like a strip of silk, shifting and changing and a reminder of how gentled he is outside of his shell. His shirt is still bloodied, but the fabric is loose around the collar and the sleeves, open, showing long stretches of freckled green skin. He looks touchable, like this, _inviting,_ even with that strange, draconic gleam in the amber of his irises, and that is so dangerous. Caleb feels his nails bite into his palms once more.

Fjord clears his throat when Caleb looks at him, though, breaks eye contact immediately, and smooths his hands together like he’s washing them. “Yep. Can do. Might as well just put it all over me, ‘cause I’m cold all over. For sure.” He drags his blue tongue across his lower lip, quick, like a snake scenting the air, and shifts so he’s facing the fire. After a moment, he begins rubbing his hands over his own forearms. His shoulders lift and lower with an intake of slow breath.

Caleb stares at him, suddenly feeling his partial nudity in a way he had not been before. He can feel Fjord’s hands on him, still, the muscles under his skin warmed and soothed, the oil glossy on his body. He thinks of the scars he knows Fjord has under that shirt, the blastmarks from the ship exploding that had ripped him open from shoulder to shoulder. He wonders if they hurt, anymore; burn scars sometimes did, long after they were supposed to be healed.

He swallows, looks down again at his own hands, at the small puncture wound Fjord had left on the right one, hidden under the blood he’d already had there. He quietly traces a simple blue pattern in the air, drags his hand through the sparks left behind, and watches as it lifts the red residue from his fingers. “If you are cold, still,” he says quietly, “we should bed down.”

Fjord doesn’t look at him, but does tilt his head in his direction, an ear twitching to indicate he is paying attention. “S’only one bed.”

Caleb hums, incredulous amusement fighting with exasperated annoyance in his mind. _Of course there is._ “Yes. All the better for warming up.”

 _Now_ Fjord turns. His face is backlit from the fire, casting it in shadow; only the otherworldly golden filament of his eyes is visible, bright against his dark sclera, matching the hoop hanging from one pointed ear. “Wh— what do you mean?”

Caleb feels another long, slow rope twisting around in his gut, knowing where Fjord’s mind has leapt. He has made the same assumption before; Caleb is, thankfully, less flustered by it this time. He licks the inside of his teeth. “Body heat,” he explains simply.

Fjord blinks. “Oh. Uh. Yeah.”

“We are both exhausted,” Caleb continues, and undoes his belt and thigh holster, slipping them off and setting them to the side atop his spellbooks. Fjord does not turn away; Caleb does not look at him. “We both need to rest. For now, we are safe. I can have Frumpkin keep watch and alert us if the hags, or our friends, or… anything else shows up.” He sits on the edge of the aforementioned single bed and begins tugging his boots off, setting them one by one at the footboard.

Fjord’s eyes remain on him, even when Caleb finally looks up to meet them. “You one of those people that sleep in their socks?” he asks, sounding just a little strained.

Caleb smirks, rolling one shoulder in a careful shrug. “I do when it is freezing. We have roomed together before; have you not noticed?”

An embarrassed chuff. “I don’t usually make a habit of watching y— watching my roommates dress down for bed.” He scrubs a hand through his hair, then down across his face, before pushing slowly to his feet. Caleb watches him work to hide his wincing, before he bends and digs around in his bag again.

He retrieves another shirt; an exact copy of the one he was presently wearing, just less wrinkled and without the blood. Caleb smiles a little to himself and ducks his head to hide it. It was very like Fjord to cart around extra clothing just in case.

Fjord changes with little aplomb, tossing his dirtied shirt onto the counter and pulling the new one on. He also doesn’t look at Caleb while he does so, and Caleb politely averts his eyes; he’s seen very much of Fjord’s body today, and while it was invited, he also knows Fjord is not the most open about… exposing himself, as it were.

He instead takes the time to summon Frumpkin, instruct him to keep watch. The orange tabby blinks up at him with large blue eyes and then _mrrows,_ twining around his ankles twice and then trotting over to Fjord to do the same before hopping up to the windowsill. Caleb tactfully pretends he doesn’t notice Fjord jump nearly a foot in the air with surprise, nor the muttered _fuckin’ cat_ that follows after. _Especially_ not the exasperatedly fond way he says it.

Fjord comes back to the bed and stands there, fiddles with his buckles, and quietly unstraps them, silent. Caleb looks up at him through his lashes.

“Are you, uh… not gonna…” Caleb watches as Fjord shifts his weight, gestures to the floor where Caleb’s shirt is presently residing.

“... Would that be more comfortable for you?”

“No— I mean.” Fjord’s face does a funny little dance. “I don’t care either way, just… you said you were keepin’ your socks on because it was cold, and, uh… your shirt… covers a lot more… of… whatever.” Fjord sits down on the bed beside him, jerking his boots off and tossing them.

“I usually sleep in very little,” Caleb explains, scratching a hand through his chest hair. “I wear a lot during the day, ehm… and with the injury, it is probably best to let it breathe a little… it is just more comfortable…” Now he is beginning to reconsider, and pauses with his hand on his sternum, uncertain. “I can put it back on.”

Fjord glances at him, and then quickly away. “That’s— like I said, it’s whatever. Didn’t mean to make it weird.”

“It isn’t weird.”

“Okay. Well. Good.” Fjord flops down onto his back and curls his legs up, tucking himself under the blankets a little clunkily with a shiver. Caleb hesitates, eyeing his shirt.

Fjord stares at him from where his head is tilted back on the pillow. He is cast in even more shadow here, the fire just bright enough to illuminate one side of his face where he is laid out on the side closer to the door. “Keep your damn shirt off, Widogast.” It’s brusque, and demanding, and Caleb sees no reason to argue when it will clearly just make Fjord more uncomfortable about the whole thing.

_Okay._

He lays down, shimmying past Fjord into the space left for him, closer to the wall. Something about Fjord having put himself between Caleb and the nearest entrance makes a weird shiver go through his stomach. He says nothing.

The pair of them settle into the bed, Caleb turned to look at the wall and Fjord curled up behind him — facing him, if the soft breaths ruffling his hair says anything. _He’s laying on his uninjured side,_ his mind reminds him, and ah, that makes sense.

After a moment, Fjord sneezes, and then hiccups around a pained groan at the way it must jostle his ribcage. “Ugh. These are dusty as shit.”

Caleb turns and presses up onto his elbows. He lets his eyes go half-lidded as he lifts one hand and leans slightly closer to Fjord so he can carve the blue pattern into the air again. Two lines across, one diagonal, white-teal and then splintering into nothing as he rakes his fingers through it again. At once, the grime and dirt covering their pillows and the bedding closest to their faces vanishes into nothing. Caleb drops his hand back onto his stomach, turning to Fjord. “I learned that one just recently. No more relying on Pumat,” he explains, smiling a little, before faltering at the intent way Fjord is looking at him.

 _Okay,_ Caleb thinks again, a little more uncertain this time.

“That’s incredible,” Fjord murmurs, and oh, it is so much more intimate when they are laying in bed together. Caleb has never known how to react to Fjord’s compliments, especially early on when Fjord had laid them on Caleb’s shoulders so often he felt like he was perpetually blushing. They had eventually petered off into appraising looks and impressed staring, which was… at least a little easier to respond to. Or not respond to. But it appears Fjord has returned to form, and so, Caleb must as well.

“... Just a cantrip, really,” Caleb deflects, staring down at his own hand and flexing the fingers.

“Maybe. But you just… deciding to learn it. And learning it. That’s amazing.” Fjord’s dark hair has settled into a couple of strands touching his temples, the streak of gray curling around to brush his eyebrow. His hair, they’ve discovered, develops an almost boyish wave when it grows out.

He looks… devastatingly handsome, even as tired as he is. His tusks have gotten to the point where there is no completely hiding them, peeking from his plush lower lip like an invitation, gleaming brighter as he breathes a compliment into Caleb’s gun-shy chest. “You just keep learning stuff, just on your own. Just usin’ that head of yours. I wish I… ” Fjord trails off, seeming to realize what he’s saying, and he exhales the rest of his breath, leaning back on his elbows as well and dragging a hand through his hair. He stays there for a moment, then shakes his head. “Anyway. Uh. Goodnight.” Fjord starts to turn his back, and then hesitates, realizing that will put him on his wound. He works his jaw for a moment, and then settles back down onto his back, folding his hands together on his stomach like a supplicant. He closes his eyes.

Caleb’s stomach is hot and gooey with attraction and pleasure, despite his inability to form a good response. He settles onto his side, facing Fjord this time, and presses his cheek into the pillow. “You wish what?”

Fjord’s eyes blink open, black lashes framed by the firelight, turned bright. He stares at the ceiling. “You know what.”

Caleb doesn’t think he does, actually, but he understands the context in this exact moment. “I… do not claim to be anything but an amateur teacher, Fjord, but… if you are serious. I could show you a thing or two.” He shuffles a little, putting a hand between them and tracing nonsense arcana in the air. “Cantrips, at least. Something so you always have a way to defend yourself. No matter what.”

Fjord rumbles. “... I dunno. I don’t wanna put you out, I… really have no idea how you’d even start doing shit like that.”

“... Well. Starting is the best way to start,” Caleb says. Fjord snorts, rubbing a hand over his face. “... It would not… ‘put me out’. I’m offering.”

After a moment, Fjord turns his head, meeting his eyes. “What would you want in exchange?” His voice is… quiet. Careful. Despite that, there is no uncertainty beneath it, and something about that makes Caleb’s gut clench.

_Ah._

“... Only your safety, _mein Fruend._ That is all.”

They stare at each other. Fjord blinks first, turning his face away again. In the dim light, the way his skin darkens is almost impossible to see. “Not like I could teach you anything, anyway, I guess.”

“Stop.” Caleb presses up onto an elbow. “Stop that. You are capable, and hard-working, and could teach me a great many things. I’ve never held a sword. I’ve never even worn armor the way you do. You are more charismatic than any of us; you could charm the pants off of anyone. You’ve proven that, at least, _ja?_ I think you are talented and, ah, amazing, and all those things you call my magic. So. There. If you want to teach me something in return, that is fine, but I just… wanted to offer… because your safety is important to the group, and…” Caleb falters, then bullies himself on, “and to me, personally, as well. So if I can do something to assure it, then I want to, just for that. Nothing else.”

He lays back down, flat. His bicep brushes Fjord’s, and he resists the urge to immediately jerk it away; this bed is definitely not large enough for them both to be lying like this without touching, so touch they will.

The room is quiet for a long moment, only the crackle of firewood breaking the silence between them. If Caleb listens, he can hear Fjord breathing, slowly, in and out, and controlled.

“... Okay.”

Caleb closes his eyes, relief and affirmation taking him in equal parts. “Okay.” He turns away again, facing the wall, and can hear Fjord do the same, turning to face his back once again. “When we get back, I can show you dancing lights. It is my favorite.”

“... First one you showed us.”

 _“... Ja,_ I was trying to be impressive.”

“You were. Impressive, I mean.”

Caleb knots the sheets under his fingers and closes his eyes. _“... Danke._ Goodnight, Fjord.”

“... G’night, Caleb.”

After a moment, there is another little shuffle. Caleb feels a large hand come and press between his shoulder blades; instantly the ache of the ice is soothed, any remaining chill dissipating like embers.

Neither of them say anything, but Fjord’s hand has not moved when Caleb finally feels himself lose the battle and sink into unconsciousness.

* * *

He dreams of nothing but unspecified warmth, which is a blessing. Even more pleasant is waking surrounded by it.

When the sunlight is finally enough to rouse him, Fjord is wrapped around Caleb from shoulder to thigh. Heat emanates from him like a fire all on his own; his hot breath is pressed into Caleb’s neck, where Fjord has somehow managed to mash his nose. One hand is tucked between them still, mushed somewhere near Caleb’s armpit; the other is on Caleb’s bare stomach. Dark hair tickles Caleb’s ear, gets gently tugged by the stubble on his jawline as Fjord grunts in his sleep and shifts his head so it’s closer. When he settles again, Caleb can hear — and feel — a vibration deep in Fjord’s chest that is so similar to Frumpkin’s purring he can call it nothing else.

Caleb might be sweating. He has not shared a bed with anyone besides Nott — who put off very little body heat, predictably — in quite some time.

It feels good. Caleb doesn’t open his eyes. _Selfish._ He lays one of his hands on top of Fjord’s where it’s loose on his abdomen, and indulges, if just for a moment. Fjord doesn’t move, breathing and rumbling in his little spot in Caleb’s neck, his knees tucked up tight against Caleb’s.

The ice on his back is so diluted he cannot even feel it. He knows it is probably still there — it would not go away without actual, proper treatment — but in this moment he is so delightfully warm after the bone-deep chill of yesterday. He presses his face into the pillow and wills himself to fall back asleep.

He doesn’t quite get there, drowsing on and off, but it is an unknowable amount of time that passes before a voice suddenly chirps in his head.

“Cay-leeeeb? Where are you? We saw you run off with Fjord but we didn’t see where you went! Are you safe? We’re okay! Just cold a--”

Caleb does open his eyes now, blinking at the wall and watching the firelight play across the wood. He takes a soft breath, and removes his hand from Fjord’s, turning his face further into the pillow.

 _“Hallo…_ we’re mildly injured, but okay.” He can feel a shift behind him, Fjord stirring. His palm presses where it is on Caleb’s stomach, pawing sleepily, still half-purring, and Caleb clenches his eyes shut again against the jolt of arousal than rushes through him. “From where we were on the road, we are… northeast… I estimate around 4 miles. There should be a cabin.”

A pause. Jester’s voice comes again after a moment. “You cut off! Fjord should count your words! We met up with the others and found town! We have horses and healing and are co—”

Caleb huffs, amusement curling in his chest. “Thank you. We’ll wait for you here.” Behind him, Fjord has not completely moved away, but is clearly roused, making grumbling noises and lifting his head from Caleb’s shoulder. He smacks his lips a couple of times, and a glance shows him lifting his hand from Caleb to scrub boyishly at his face.

“Mmmh… message?”

 _Or not so boyish._ His voice is at least two octaves deeper than normal, throaty, like gravel. It’s toe-curling and devastating. Caleb only contains his shiver because Fjord is pressed right up against him and would be able to feel it.

“Yes,” he manages, rubbing his knobby ankles together under the blankets and feeling Fjord’s foot bump against his own. _Scheiβe._ “The others are safe and are heading our way now.”

“Good… good.” Fjord lets his hand fall back down, and it lands on Caleb’s waist, easy as you please. “Hope the hags are gone.”

“They… um, appear to be mostly nocturnal, from… my research. Hopefully no trouble.” A flush begins to twine its way up Caleb’s face. “I suppose we should get ready.”

Fjord is quiet. After a moment, he sinks back down into the blankets. “In a minute. I’m… warm.”

Caleb wants very much to turn back and look at him, see the expression on his face, learn where to go from here. But the air feels brittle with tension, like one wrong move could break the entire thing.

So instead, Caleb sinks back down, too. “Alright. One more minute.”

Fjord whooshes out a breath he doesn’t think he’s meant to hear. “Yeah. Just one more, and we’ll get up.”

They lay together, warm and comfortable and close. Caleb counts one minute, and then two, and then five. Somewhere between six and ten, Fjord moves up behind him again, the hand on his waist sliding around to his stomach. He pauses, waits for rebuttal, and when Caleb doesn’t offer it he settles further into the bed.

Twenty minutes in, Fjord presses his mouth to the ice on Caleb’s back. Caleb shakes out a breath, clutches the hand on his stomach, and lets him, arching just a little in encouragement.

“Does it hurt?” Fjord asks him, so quiet it’s nearly inaudible. “Mine hurts, sometimes, when people touch it.”

“Fjord,” he murmurs, “you aren’t hurting me.”

After that, there is not much more talking. Caleb closes his eyes and feels Fjord breathing against his back, lift up to press his face into the back of his neck, and tells himself that if he’s still sleeping he might as well enjoy it. Fjord holds him and it’s just tight enough that Caleb thinks maybe he needs this, too.

It’s been an hour and 20 minutes when Frumpkin suddenly perks up from his steady perch on the windowsill and lets out a _mrrp_ that has Fjord rousing from whatever dreamlike-state he’d been in, jerking up like he’d lost track of time. He hisses softly, retracting a hand to press against his wound. “Ah, shit.”

Caleb, very much not asleep, pushes up onto an elbow. He had not really moved from this position for several hours, and his body protests as he finally rolls himself onto his other side with a groan. “They’re here.” He flicks a look Fjord’s way and pauses.

The man looks much smaller in the gray daylight spilling through the window of the cabin. Gone is the golden gleam of fire that made him seem so powerful and so confident. Now he blinks up at Caleb with sleepy yellow eyes, and an uncertainty around his jaw, twisting lines between his brow and along his mouth. He stares for a moment, gaze flicking along Caleb’s face and hair and then down along his throat, to his bare chest, as if cataloguing. “... We should get ready,” he says quietly.

Caleb lifts his free hand, helpless, and cradles Fjord’s jaw with it, allowing himself this one last thing. He presses his thumb, just briefly, to his lower lip; Fjord’s pupils blow infinitesimally at the contact. “Good morning,” he murmurs, and pulls up a smile from when he was a nicer man.

Fjord blinks again, then huffs, some sort of bashfulness making him break the eye contact and smile at Caleb’s collarbone instead. “Yeah. Morning, Caleb.”

“Come on. You know Nott is probably running in our direction before everybody else.” Caleb sits up completely, lifting his arms above his head and stretching out as best he can.

“Fuckin’... right. Nott.” Fjord sits up beside him, and rubs his face with both hands, groaning tiredly behind them.

The pair of them totter around the cabin trying to quickly get dressed before the rest of the Nein arrive. Fjord trips over Frumpkin at least twice with swears and muttered apologies. He is charmingly out of alignment, clumsy in a way he is not, normally. Caleb would maybe tease him for it if he was not also feeling decidedly discombobulated.

Just before they open the door, Fjord stops him, laying a hand on his back, just between the shoulder blades.

Caleb turns, looks up at him, and Fjord’s mouth works around words before he seems to settle on them. “Hey, so. I know we’re kinda all about the not talkin’ about it thing, but… do you think… maybe we could talk about… this? This thing happenin’ between you and me? Sometime?” Nerves dance in his expression, and he looks perhaps the most vulnerable Caleb has seen him. Caleb wonders if his own face is mirroring him. “Sometime soon, I mean. Not just… ‘later’. But. Soon. Real soon.”

Caleb feels a complicated twist in his stomach. Aching, yawning hunger barks and claws behind the door he has on it, sealed up behind his ribcage, ignored and starving. _Want._ He is frightened of it, of what it might do now that he has been neglecting it for so long.

But when Caleb looks at Fjord, he can almost see the same ache reflected. He can see the door, in Fjord, and he can see Fjord reaching out for him, one hand, a plea. _Help me feed this. Help me fix it._

Caleb lays a hand on Fjord’s forearm, gives it a squeeze. _“Ja._ Okay.”

“Okay?” Fjord blinks, like he hadn’t expected that answer. “Not just a— a ‘yeah, okay, Fjord’, but like. Okay? ‘Cuz every day we just keep dancing around this shit is another day you could be dead, especially since you won’t… since you just don’t learn healing magic, and I’m gonna be real mad if you’re telling me _okay_ and then another ice blast hits you and you’re just.” Fjord clenches his jaw, exhales. “I need something more than that.”

Caleb can hear footsteps on the porch outside. He swallows, and then uses his grip on Fjord to lean up, to press his lips to the corner of Fjord’s, just over the tip of a small tusk. He sinks back down quickly onto his heels, staring up at him, hot and sweaty and nervous. “When we get back to the Xhorhouse. When we are not about to get walked in on by our friends. I swear it.”

Fjord stares him down, almost disbelieving. A hand lifts to where Caleb kissed him, black claws gentle. “... I’ll hold you to that.”

“Good.” He unlocks the door, feeling a spark in his chest he has not felt in some time. “I look forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @leomundstinyhut and tumblr... also @leomundstinyhut! come talk to me all i do is shitpost about this show
> 
> \--
> 
> gay love conquers 5e rules!!!
> 
> also there was almost a part of the fic here where fjord got his chest stuck to caleb's ice wound bc he was so warm and it was gonna be a comedic moment to lighten the tone but then i remembered fjord sleeps in his shirt u__u rip shenanigans


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